Messaging apparatus and method thereof

ABSTRACT

A virtual online meeting room is provided. An external message is received by an originator user from an outside source. The external message is displayed to an originator user and is prevented from being displayed to remainder users. The originator user is permitted to designate at least a portion of the external message as shared. At least one of the remainder users is permitted to have at least the portion of the external message displayed to them responsive to the at least the portion of the external message being designated as shared.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/609,663 which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/293,620, which claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) of U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/358,719, filed Jul. 6, 2016, and U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/253,229, filed Nov. 10, 2015, the entiredisclosures of all of which are incorporated by reference herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Implementations of the current disclosure relate generally to real-timeelectronic communications, and more specifically, for integratingactionable objects into an on-line chat communications platform.

BACKGROUND

Electronic chat communications (which include chat room communications,instant messaging and text messaging, etc.) are an increasingly popularway for two or more people to communicate on-line in virtual real time.For example, chat sessions for conveying a quick note are often used inthe workplace in lieu of have a phone call with multiple individuals. Insome situations, an ability to quickly communicate with more than oneperson using chat communications often saves time and avoids costlymistakes in collaborative efforts, such as team projects. When multiplepeople, however, are participating in a chat session that may beestablished for a large project, current electronic chat communicationsare limited due the sequential, read-only, chronological presentation ofexchanges between individuals or groups individuals associated with theelectronic chat session.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A virtual online meeting room is provided. An external message isreceived by an originator user from an outside source. The externalmessage is displayed to an originator user and is prevented from beingdisplayed to remainder users. The originator user is permitted todesignate at least a portion of the external message as shared. At leastone of the remainder users is permitted to have at least the portion ofthe external message displayed to them responsive to the at least theportion of the external message being designated as shared.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The disclosure is illustrated by way of example, and not by way oflimitation, and will become apparent upon consideration of the followingdetailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings, in which like reference characters refer to like partsthroughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a system in which implementationsof the disclosure may operate.

FIG. 2 is a pictorial diagram of a system including a plurality ofclient devices in accordance with aspects of the disclosure.

FIG. 3 is an example of a landing interface portal of a client device inaccordance with aspects of the disclosure.

FIGS. 4A-4E are examples illustrating an interactive interface portal inaccordance with aspects of the disclosure.

FIGS. 5A-5D are examples illustrating another interactive interfaceportal in accordance with aspects of the disclosure.

FIG. 5E illustrates an exemplary text entry bar that allows for sidebarselection.

FIG. 6 is an example of a flow diagram illustrating an implementation ofa method in accordance with implementations of the disclosure.

FIG. 7 is an example of a flow diagram illustrating an implementation ofa method in accordance with implementations of the disclosure.

FIG. 8 is an example of a flow diagram illustrating an implementation ofa method in accordance with implementations of the disclosure.

FIG. 9 illustrates a diagrammatic representation of a machine in theexemplary form of a computer system.

FIG. 10A-10I are screenshots that illustrate one or more exemplaryembodiments of the present invention.

FIGS. 11A-11F are screen shots that illustrate a further exemplaryembodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 12A-12D are screen shots that illustrate a further exemplaryembodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 13A-13D are screen shots that illustrate a further exemplaryembodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Implementations of the disclosure provide techniques for integratingactionable objects into an on-line chat communications platform. Thismay be advantageous in improving chat messaging technology by providinguser perceivable actionable objects in a chat session that are executedby a client device to enhance communications between participants of thesession.

To communicate typically, various different mediums use a number ofdifferent applications resulting in a loss of context and continuity inthe communications. For example, some users may not be able to keeptrack of whether a message that was sent to or received from anotheruser using different modes of communication (e.g., chat/email, etc.). Insuch cases, there is no organization flow associated with the messagesnor is it possible to determine a response came before or after anothermessage sent or received. Furthermore in traditional chat technology,information is extremely perishable. For example, once a message is offthe top of the screen, it is rarely seen again, thus making it evenharder to maintain the context of the message stream.

In accordance with the present disclosure a system is provided that isintended to be used as a system of record for an organization, workgroup, social group, etc., using various combinations of communicationtechniques. In some aspects, the system addresses the problems in chattechnology of disjointed, ad hoc electronic communications. For example,by allowing one-to-one private messaging within a group chat channelthis disclosure addresses a common problem of reply-to-all clutter whileretaining context and continuity (place, time, meaning), and the flow ofthe conversation for each unique user. Further, by integrating a systemof identifying and grouping together past messages from within a channeland even allowing those messages to be combined with other past messagesfrom other channels, this disclosure addresses the problem of discussionarchival and retrieval and by further still integrating actionableobjects such as “Tasks”, “Ideas”, “Events”, “Surveys”, etc., into thesystem. This allows messages (e.g., chat messages) to be “typed” makingthem organized, searchable, referenceable, context oriented andactionable thereby enhancing communications, saving time and increasingproductivity of users. The elements of this disclosure provideadditional advantages that are further enhanced when the elements arecombined and integrated together making possible a comprehensive anddynamic system of record. In some implementations, the disclosure can beimplemented in accordance with numerous aspects consistent with thetechniques presented herein.

Although implementations of the disclosure may be particularlybeneficial in certain types of communication platforms (e.g., chat roomcommunications), other types of communication platforms can be utilizedin conjunction with the disclosure. For example, some of thesecommunication platforms may include platforms for text messages, shortmessage services (SMS), e-mails and other types of similar on-linecommunication platforms for facilitating information exchanges betweenclient devices of a plurality of participants.

In the following description, numerous details are set forth. It will beapparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that the disclosure may bepracticed without these specific details. In some instances, well-knownstructures and devices are shown in block diagram form, rather than indetail, in order to avoid obscuring the disclosure.

The disclosure is related to a system for performing the operationsherein. This system may be specially constructed for the requiredpurposes or it may comprise a general purpose computing deviceselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program storedtherein. Such a computer program may be stored in a non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium, such as, but not limited to, any typeof disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs andmagnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random accessmemories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, flashmemory devices including universal serial bus (USB) storage devices(e.g., USB key devices) or any type of media suitable for storingelectronic instructions, each of which may be coupled to a computersystem bus.

In some implementations, the computer program product, or software mayinclude a non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereoninstructions, which may be used to program a computer system (or otherelectronic devices) to perform a process according to the disclosure. Amachine-readable medium includes any mechanism for storing ortransmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., acomputer). For example, a machine-readable (e.g., computer-readable)medium includes a machine (e.g., a computer) readable storage medium(e.g., read only memory (“ROM”), random access memory (“RAM”), magneticdisk storage media, optical storage media, flash memory devices, etc.),a machine (e.g., computer) readable transmission medium (non-propagatingelectrical, optical, or acoustical signals), etc.

In one implementation, the computer program product may be installedand/or a service may be selected from a cloud-computing environment inorder to obtain the benefits of the techniques described herein. In animplementation, the computer program product may be downloaded onto aclient device. For example, a participant may elect to download thecomputer program product from a service associated with an onlineserver. The client device may transmit a request for the computerprogram product over a network and, in response, receive the computerprogram product from the service. The computer program product may beinstalled locally on the client device or stored at the service and maybe accessed through the client device, for example, via a mobile webbrowser.

I. Example Systems

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a system 100 in whichimplementations of the disclosure may operate. In some implementations,the system 100 may facilitate the transfer of electronic communicationsbetween computing devices of two or more users or participants over acommunication network. The system 100 can include one or more servers(e.g. server device 140), which provide access or a communication linkbetween a plurality of client devices (e.g., client devices 110, 120 and130) in order to facilitate communication between two or more clientdevices.

As shown in FIG. 1, the system 100 may include a plurality of clientcomputing devices, such as client devices 110, 120 and 130, coupled tonetwork 195, and one or more server computing devices, such as serverdevice 140, capable of communicating with the client computing devices110, 120 and 130 over the network 195. In some implementations, thenetwork 195 may be a private network (e.g., a local area network (LAN),Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Radio Frequency), a wide area network (WAN), intranet,etc.), or a public network (e.g., the Internet).

Server device 140 may be at one node of network 195 and capable ofdirectly and indirectly communicating with other nodes of the network195. For example, the server device 140 may include a web server thatmay be capable of communicating with client devices 110, 120 and 130 vianetwork 195 such that it uses the network 195 to transmit and displayinformation to a participant on a display associated with clientdevices. In some implementations, the server device 140 may also includea plurality of computers that exchange information with different nodesof a network for the purpose of receiving, processing and transmittingdata to the client devices 110, 120 and 130.

Referring to FIG. 1, the computing devices of system 100, such as clientdevice 110, may include one or more I/O (input/output) devices 111,processors 112, memory 114, and other components typically present ingeneral purpose computers. “Processor” or “Processing device” hereinrefers to a device capable of executing instructions encodingarithmetic, logical, or I/O operations. In one illustrative example, aprocessor may include an arithmetic logic unit (ALU), a control unit,and a plurality of registers. In a further aspect, a processor may be asingle core processor which is typically capable of executing oneinstruction at a time (or process a single pipeline of instructions), ora multi-core processor which may simultaneously execute multipleinstructions. In another aspect, a processor may be implemented as asingle integrated circuit, two or more integrated circuits, or may be acomponent of a multi-chip module (e.g., in which individualmicroprocessor dies are included in a single integrated circuit packageand hence share a single socket). A processor may also be referred to asa central processing unit (CPU). “Memory” herein refers to a volatile ornon-volatile memory device, such as RAM, ROM, EEPROM, or any otherdevice capable of storing data. “I/O device” herein refers to a devicecapable of providing an interface between a processor and an externaldevice capable of inputting and/or outputting binary data. Although, forsimplicity, a single processor 112 is depicted in FIG. 1, in some otherimplementations computer system 100 may comprise a plurality ofprocessors. Similarly, in some other implementations computer system 100may comprise a plurality of I/O devices, rather than a single I/O device111.

Instructions 116 of the client device 110 may be a set of instructionsto be executed directly (such as machine code) or indirectly (such asscripts) by the processor 112. In that regard, the terms “instructions,”“steps” and “programs” may be used interchangeably herein. Theinstructions 116 may be stored in object code format for directprocessing by the processors 112, or in another computer languageincluding scripts or collections of independent source code modules thatare interpreted on demand or compiled in advance.

Data 118 may be retrieved, stored or modified by processors 112 inaccordance with the instructions 116. For instance, although the presentdisclosure is not limited by a particular data structure, the data 118may be stored in computer registers, in a relational database as a tablehaving a plurality of different fields and records, XML documents, orflat files. The data 118 may also be formatted in a computer-readableformat such as, but not limited to, binary values, ASCII or Unicode. Byfurther way of example only, the data 118 may comprise informationsufficient to identify the relevant information, such as numbers,descriptive text, proprietary codes, pointers, references to data storedin memory or information that is used by a function to calculate therelevant data. For example, the data 118 may include actionable objects115 that may identify user perceivable action that can be included in achat session.

Each of the actionable objects 115 may comprise an adjustable datastructure (e.g., a memory array) comprising a plurality of fields thatcharacterize a type category to associate with a chat message. Byincorporating the actionable objects 115 into the creation of the chatmessages, the system 100 is able to ascribe a value “type” to eachmessage. In one implementation, when one or more actionable objects 115are added or inserted into a chat message of the chat session, theactionable object executes a series of steps to be performed by acorresponding user perceivable action. The series of steps can bepreprogrammed or variable based on the context of the type category forthat action.

In some implementations, each client device may include an application117 to facilitate different types of electronic communications betweeneach client device and one or more other client devices via network 195,including providing interactive interface portals 118 for facilitatingvarious operating functions of the disclosure. In one implementation,the application 117 may be installed and/or a service may be selected inorder to obtain the benefits of the techniques described herein. In animplementation, the application 117 may be downloaded onto the clientdevice 110. For example, a participant may elect to download theapplication from a service associated with an online server. The clientdevice 110 may transmit a request for the application 117 over network195 and, in response, receive the application 117 from the service.

The application 117 may be installed locally on the client device 110.Alternatively, the application 117 can be stored at the service and maybe accessed through the client device 110, for example, via a mobile webbrowser. By using the application 117, the client device 110 mayintegrate into a chat session user perceivable actionable objects, suchas actionable objects 115, which can be executed by the client device110 to enhance communications between participants of that session. Inan alternative implementation, the application 117 may be a firmwareembedded in communication device.

As shown in FIG. 1, the instructions 116 may include an interface portal118 for displaying network data and to allow a participant associatedwith the client device 110 to interactively navigate over the display ofdata. The interface portal 118 provides for the display of networkcontent, such as chat messages of a chat session or any other type ofnetwork data, to an I/O device 111 (e.g., a touch screen display) of theclient device 110 by sending and receiving data across the network 195.The network data may be received in response to a transmitted chatmessage that includes one or more actions objects 115.

To facilitate integrating actionable objects into a chat session, theinstructions 116 of the client device 110 may include actionable objectintegration module 119. The actionable object integration module 119 maygenerate and transmit user perceivable actionable objects in a chatsession that can be executed by the client devices of system 100. Thefunctionality of the module 119 can exist in a fewer or greater numberof modules than what is shown, with such modules residing at one or morecomputing devices, which may be geographically dispersed. The systemsmay be operable in conjunction with components of the client device 110from which it may receive chat message related data and other relevantinformation regarding the device 110.

FIG. 2 is a pictorial diagram of a system 200 including a plurality ofcomputing devices in accordance with aspects of the disclosure. In someimplementations of system 200 two or more computing devices (e.g.,participant/client devices) may engage in an electronic communicationsession (e.g., chat session) with each other. In some implementations, afirst participant/client device may engage in a chat session with asecond participant/client device via a network 195. As shown, FIG. 2illustrates network 195 having a plurality of computing devices, such asclient device 110, and other types of computing devices, a base station210, a personal data assistant (PDA) 220, a laptop/netbook 230 and atablet 240 as well as computing server devices 250 and 260 (e.g.,computing devices that can be located at a number of different receivingstations). The various devices may be interconnected via a network ordirect connection 218 and/or may be coupled via a communications network195 (e.g., a LAN, WAN, the Internet, etc. that may be wired orwireless). In some implementations, the computing devices maycommunicate with each other before accessing the communication network195.

Each device may include, for example, user input devices such as akeyboard 214 and mouse 216 and/or various other types of input devicessuch as pen-inputs, joysticks, buttons, touch screens, etc., as well asa display, which could include, for instance, a CRT, LCD, plasma screenmonitor, TV, projector, touch screen, etc. Each device may be a personalcomputer, application server, etc. By way of example only, computingdevice 110 may be a mobile phone while computing device 260 may be aserver. Databases, such as database 270, may be accessible to one ormore of the computing devices or other devices of system 200. Thedatabase 270 may comprise data, such as state information 275,associated a chat session implemented on the client devices as well asstore chat messages transmitted via system 200.

In one implementation, a resource associated with the system 200 may beused to maintain a consistency of the state information 275 and in suchcases when there is a system failure. This is so that the chat sessioncan continue uninterrupted without losing chat participant details. Forexample, a state manager (not shown) may maintain and transfer the stateinformation 275 to state backup storage (not shown) for later retrieval.State backup storage may be accessible by any of the computing devicesof system 200 via network connection 218 so that the chat sessionbetween the participants may be rerouted while the state information 275is maintained, if a computing device of system 200 fails.

In some implementations, the state information 275 may correspond to achat session between participants associated with the client devices ofsystem 200. In some implementations, the state information 275 may bestored in database 270 by the state manager running on the server device260 and/or the client devices or some combination thereof. In oneimplementation, the state information 275 may include, for example,information regarding the identity of participants of the chat session,the number of chat participants, actionable objects 119 that are appliedto the chat session, a unique identifier associated with each of theaction objects 119 and/or the chat message or session, and an order inwhich chat messages are received as well as other relevant information.When an actionable object 119 is applied in a particular chat session,the state information 275 for that session may be updated in accordancewith the user perceivable action associated with the actionable object119. This updating of the state information 275 in accordance with theactionable object 119 applied therein is further discussed below withrespect to various interactive interfaces of the disclosure.

II. Example Interactive Interfaces

Embodiments of the disclosure provide actionable functionality to thecontents of chat messages to distill and extract central elements of asingle, one-to-one or group chat conversation. A participant of the chatsessions may be provided with a variety of different interactiveinterfaces to facilitate the transfer of an electronic communicationsbetween participants in a chat session. In some implementations, theinterfaces allow the participants to integrate actionable objects, suchas actionable objects 119 into the chat session to enhance theelectronic communications between the participants. The interfaces maybe flexibly configured to include various types of buttons, cursors, andtools as well as formatted content on a display on a client device. Inone implementation, an application, such as application 117 of FIG. 1,on the client device of the participant may present the participant witha graphical user interface (GUI) that allows the participant to directmessages comprising the actionable objects 119 to other selectedparticipants of the chat session.

With regards to FIG. 3, an example of a landing interface portal 300 ofa client device is shown. In some implementations, the landing interfaceportal 300 may correspond to the interface portal 118 in system 100 ofFIG. 1. The landing interface portal 300 provides an example interfacein which a chat messaging session can be engaged by a number ofparticipants that are represented by the participant icons A-H on theportal 300. in some implementations, the interface portal 300 mayinclude several panels that include a channel/dialog panel 310, amessage window panel 320 and a side panel 330. The channel/dialog panel310 displays the different chat session groups 315 that a particularparticipant 317 has joined. The message window panel 320 displays thechat messages 325 exchanged by the participants. In someimplementations, the message window panel 320 also includes a count ofthe current participants 323 and a text entry region 327 that allows theparticipants to insert and reformat the text (i.e., bold, italics,color), add a link (hypertext link) or file, or insert an actionableobject or bundle communications into a chat session. The side panel 330can be adjusted to dynamically display elements regarding variousmessages or groups of messages 335 and other information to theactionable objects as disclosed herein.

Each message that is entered into the text entry region 327 is displayedin the message window panel 320. In some implementations, the messages325 can be flagged or marked (for example, by color) to isolate themessage for later use. An advantage of marking individual messages isthat it provides participants with a way to indicate, highlight orassociate messages, for current use or future recall for themselves orothers.

In some implementations, the interface portal 300 provides contextrelevant searching to display messages that match an inputted searchcriterion while simultaneously affording the search originator necessarymessage context. In one example, the participant taps on a controlassociated to a particular message in the message window 320 to bring upa palette of color tags. One or more colors may be used to tag themessage. The user can select, add, delete and name colors in usersettings. In some implementations, the search criterion can be typed,tapped, moved, imported, loaded from a saved file, written, spoken(entered by any known means) through the interface portal 300. Thesearch criterion can be a single or combination of and/or Boolean searchterm (word, #tag, name, color, texture), color tags that may be definedand/or reserved. In one implementation, the context relevant searchingallows for the discovery of messages that come before and after the“found” instances (“context”) to enhance search results. For example,when a User selects a found message, the message is displayed (forexample, in the side panel 330) with messages that came immediatelybefore and immediately after that message.

In some implementations, from time to time a user may wish to initiateor continue a dialog/thread/conversation with another member and maywant to quickly identify all of the “mutual” chats/conversations, thatis, chats they have in common with the other person. Quicklyascertaining mutual chats can save time and frustration for chatparticipants. In accordance with the present disclosure, a user canascertain mutual chats, which allows the user to switch between chatgroups, dialogs, threads or conversations. For example, the user canactivate a control on a particular message in the message window 320that in turn displays a list of “mutual” dialogs/conversations (e.g., inthe side panel 330.) User can then select any dialog from the list toimmediately switch to that conversation to be displayed in the messagewindow 320.

In some implementations, the interface portal includes a text crawlregion 340 where messages sent to one or more intended recipients aredisplayed. The text crawl region 340 may contain text, graphics, soundsor recorded messages (or any combination thereof). The text crawl region340 can be placed, sized and/or moved to call attention or notice to theparticipants of the messages. For example, the text crawl region 340 maybe enlarged, shrunken, hidden, tagged, named, saved, deleted, forwarded,edited, or remain a static size, random size or variable. Text and/orgraphics the text crawl region 340 of the can appear in any color orcombination of colors.

Users may have the option of defining the types and conditions underwhich they will accept, view or have the text crawl region 340 visibleto them. A text crawl may be accompanied by a sound or vibration.Associated sounds can be varied depending upon the context and/orcontent and/or originator of the crawl. Some crawl message can begenerated as a result of a subscription, membership or affiliation(e.g., based on defined criteria and linked to a social media account,feed or the like). Text crawl messages may also be automaticallygenerated based upon certain criteria being met such as, for example, alocation or proximity to a person, place, thing or an event, date ortime. The crawl can be spawned by other third party applications as aresult of a search being performed, an inquiry made or a purchase beingmade. In some implementations, text crawl can be a reminder, an alert, amessage, an advertisement, an award, a receipt, a ticket, or otherindication. A hypertext or other link can be embedded in the text crawlregion 340. By moving a mouse cursor on the text crawl region 340 orselecting a particular message in the region 340 more informationrelating to the text crawl may be revealed and acted upon.

In some implementations, the text crawl may include a listing of textthat meets a search criterion. For example, when by interacting with thetext crawl region 340 (e.g., with a mouse cursor), the search criterionmay automatically include all messages/objects that are tagged as“Crawl” objects. In one implementation, the search may be furtherrefined to include text crawl messages that are included in the dialogchat messages between participants. Initially, the text crawl region 340may display messages from a particular work group (e.g., that issubscribed to, accepted or originated by a current user to public orsocial or unknown users). Users may turn on or turn off the text crawlregion 340 and can further set parameters such as (but not limited to)the type of crawls the user is willing to accept to be displayed in thetext crawl region 340

In some implementations, crawl “objects” are tagged and can be linked toa single dialog or more than one dialog in the chat message panel 320.The crawl objects can be sent to one or more recipients, such asregistered and non-registered participant. Some participant may receivea notification of the crawl object through mechanisms other than theinterface portal 300, for example, email, text message or othermechanism. A link may be provided in the notification directing theparticipant to activate the crawl object. If the email or chat softwareof the recipient is capable with the interface portal 300, the crawlmessage may be displayed from within the recipient's email or chatservice.

In some implementations, the creator of the crawl message may have theoption to name the crawl message. The color of the text may be selectedand can vary from character to character. The crawl message creator maychoose to animate the text (e.g., text flashing). When receiving a crawlnotification for the first time, the recipient may be prompted to withseveral options, such as to “Accept Crawls from the Sender Once, RejectCrawls from the Sender Once, Always accept Crawls from the Sender orNever accept crawls from the Sender.” The settings for the text crawlregion 340 of interface portal 300 regarding crawl notifications may beset and later modified by the recipient.

III. Chat with Actionable Objects

FIGS. 4A-4E are examples illustrating an interactive interface portal400. For example, the interface portal 400 may correspond to interfaceportal 118 of system 100 in FIG. 1. Interface portal 400 may be comparedto interface portal 300 of FIG. 3. For example, the interface portal 400includes several panels that include a channel/dialog panel 410 (whichmay be compared to channel/dialog panel 410, a message window panel 420(which may be compared to message window panel 420) and a side panel 430(which may be compared to side panel 330). The interface portal 400provides an example interface in which a chat messaging session can beengaged by a number of participants that are represented by theparticipant icons A-H on the portal 400. In this example, the interfaceportal 400 allows participants to integrate user perceivable actionableobjects in a chat session channel 425, which can be executed by a clientdevice to enhance communications between participants of the sessionchannel 425. In some aspects, by integrating actionable object such as“Tasks”, “Ideas”, “Events”, “Tokens”, “Surveys”, etc., into chatchannels, it allows messages (e.g., chat messages) to be organized,searchable, referenceable and context oriented to enhance communicationsand increase productivity of users.

In some implementations, a control (e.g., a window tab) on the portal400 may be activated to display a listing of actionable objects 440 thatcan be utilized. For example, as shown in FIG. 4A, the listing ofactionable objects 440 can be display in the side panel 430 of theinterface portal 400. Each actionable object 440 corresponds to a datastructure, such as actionable object 115, which may include a typecategory indicator to characterize a user perceivable action associatedwith the actionable object. For example, the type categories mayinclude, but are not limited to, a question indicator, a task indicatoror an idea indicator, a finance indicator, a tokens indicator, a customcategory indicator and various of type of indicators associated with awork group or participants of a chat session. When one or more of theactionable objects 440 are added or inserted into a chat message of thechat session, the actionable object executes a series of steps to beperformed by a client device executing a corresponding user perceivableaction. The series of steps can be preprogrammed or variable based onthe context of the type category for that action.

Each actionable object 440 is associated with one or more datastructures that provide enhanced functionality to chat communications.In some implementations, a user may select an icon, such as one of icons450, associated with an actionable object to insert into the chatsession. An advantage of inserting the actionable object 440 into chatmessages is that it provides the basis of order and structure to thechat session to provide an interactive presentment of messagingactivity. In some implementations, the actionable object 440 can beselected using various mechanisms, such as such as keyboard shortcuts.

Responsive to the selection an actionable object to insert into a chatsession, at least one participant of a plurality of participants may beassociated with the actionable object. For example, a user may add oneor more participants to a dialog box 460 of the interface portal 400.The association indicates that the actionable object is directed to theidentified participants, which may be presented on the participant'sclient device when the actionable object is transmitted, for example, byusing network 195. In one implementation, the interface portal 400provides a text input section 470 that may be used to add additionalinformation 470 regarding the user perceivable action to be executed inaccordance with the selected actionable object.

When a participant, via the interface portal 400, creates and sends acommunication including the actionable object to the client device of areceiving participant, the receiving participant receives thecommunication (e.g., in the form of an actionable object control) in thechat session in which the participants are currently engaged. Theapplication, such as application 117 of the receiving client device actsto initiate or enable the actionable object at the receiving participantend by executing the user perceivable action associated with the object.In this regard, the sending participant by sending the actionable objectis requesting to escalate the chat session to a more content enrichedform of communication. A recipient participant can activate theactionable object control or activate a communication session at therecipient client device in accordance with the user perceivable actionof the actionable objects 440.

In some implementations, the actionable objects 440 may be used incombination. For example, the interface portal 400 may receive aselection of additional actionable objects from the plurality ofactionable objects and combine these additional actionable objects withthe actionable object in the chat session. The combination may changethe characteristics of the user perceivable action to be performed basedon a relative order of the inserted actionable objects 440 and otheractionable objects 440 appearing elsewhere in the message flow of thechat session.

In one example, the interface portal 400 may detect the presence of twoor more task type actionable objects, separated by three question typeactionable objects. In this example, the order and/or grouping of theactions performed by the client device with regards to the questions maybe adjusted. For example, the interface portal 400 may detect that onequestion objection has been inserted, which causes the portal 400 toprompt the user for further information. In some implementations, thepresentation, input, characterization, appearance, or non-appearance ofthe actionable objects can vary based on the combination (or absence of)various actionable objects in a specific chat messages and/or chatsession.

A. Question Objects

Turning to FIG. 4B another view of the interactive interface portal 400is shown. In this example, if the user selects the question actionableobject, the interface 400 may adjust the side panel 430 to providecharacteristics relating to a specific type of survey question. Forexample, the user seeks to add a question to their message to poll forresponses from other participants to a chat session in a particularform. When the sending participant initiates this actionable object,several fields are displayed in the side panel 430 in which the sendingparticipant can characterize certain aspects of the question actionableobject. As shown in FIG. 4B merely as an illustrative example, thesefields may include, a plurality of control objects 411 to select aparticular question for the chat session, a label field 412, a recipientfield 413 to add particular recipients, a message field 414 as well asother relevant fields regarding the polling question.

In some implementations, the plurality of control objects 411 allows thesending participant to select a combination of different pollingquestions to provide to the chat session. In one implementation, theparticular questions may be displayed in a questions region, such asquestions region 415 and 416, of the side panel 430 for further adjustsby the sending participants. Although only two question regions areshown in FIG. 4B, the interface portal 400 may include a number ofadditional questions regions for configuring polling questions in theside panel 430.

In some implementations, these polling question actionable objects mayinclude, but not limited to, 1) a multiple/single choice object, 2) aranking object, 3) a slider object, and 4) a narrative response, etc. Ifthe multiple/single choice object is selected, this object provides oneor more customizable fields. This object also allows the sendingparticipants to upload, via the interface portal 400, a media or otherfile which is associated with the specific choice, such as choice 1 2 or3 in questions region 415, which can be presented with the pollingquestion. If the ranking object is selected, this object inserts orreferences a polling question into the side panel 430 along withinputted configuration settings on how the chat session is to display,categorize, and associate this polling question with regards to otherpolling questions in the chat session.

If the slider object is selected, the object inserts or references apolling question into the side panel 430 along with pull-down menuoptions (as shown in questions region 416) to allow the individual tocustomize selectable feedback options. For example, the selectablefeedback options may include a determined list of slider attributes toallow the sending participant to customize the slider left, center andright attributes (e.g., Strongly Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree orStrongly agree) to correspond with responses from the receivingparticipant. It should be noted that this is merely a few examples asother polling questions and question settings can be customized by thesending participant. An advantage of providing a slider object that canbe incorporated into the chat session is that the responses can bestructured and also viewed numerically (e.g., with reference to aspecific position along a slider) as opposed to receiving unstructurednarrative responses from the receiving participants that may bedifficult to interpret.

In some implementations, the question actionable object can beassociated or assigned to one or more receiving participants. Forexample, information regarding the receiving participants may beinserted into recipient field 413. In one implementation, the sendingparticipant may send the question actionable objects to receivingparticipants in the chat session by activating a control 417 on theinterface portal 400. In some implementations, the receivingparticipants of the polling question can include members and non-membersof the chat session, or another team or participant in the chat systemthat is not in the chat session. In one implementation, non-members maybe notified by through an electronic transmission, such as email that apolling question is waiting. A link may be provided in the emailnotification directing the non-member to move into a browser toview/participate in the polling question. In addition to being notifiedthat a polling question is waiting, the non-member may be provided withother information regarding the polling question, such the identity ofthe sending participant. The link to the polling question may remainactive until a determined period of time, such as an expiration date forthe polling questions set by the sending participant.

Once the fields of the selected polling question actionable objects inthe side panel 430 are completed, the sending participants may previewthe objects before submitting them to the chat session. The pollingquestion actionable objects are then embedded in the chat message as a“structured” data object that can be executed by the client device of areceiving participant. In some implementations, the objects of the sidepanel 430 can be associated or assigned to one or more receivingparticipants. For example, information regarding the receivingparticipants may be inserted into recipient field 413. In oneimplementation, the sending participant may send the polling questionactionable object to receiving participant in the chat session byactivating a control 417 on the interface portal 400. In someimplementations, the receiving participants may configure certainpreferences regarding receiving polling question actionable objects,such as a type of polling questions the participant is willing toaccept, a minimum compensation for accepting and/or answering thepolling questions, etc.

Responses to the polling questions by members as well as non-members aremade available to the sending participants and other authorized membersof the chat session. The sending participant may choose whether to makethe results available to a respondent immediately after the respondentresponds to the polling questions or only once the expiration date andtime has passed. In some situations, the sending participants can rewardthe receiving participants with recognition points or other type oftokens that will be discussed later in the disclosure.

In FIG. 4C, another view of the interactive interface portal 400 isshown. In this example, a receiving participant in the chat session mayreceive a control object 421 that can be activated to display thepolling questions, participant information, expiration dates, etc., andbe provided with the options for responding. In some implementations,the control object may be highlighted with version colors to indicatethat the polling questions are reaching an expiration date in whichresponses can be received. The receiving participant may selectivelyexecute (e.g., by clicking on the object on the display) the controlobject 421 to view and respond to the polling questions. In someimplementations, the side panel 430 may display in a polling region,such as polling regions 422 and 423, the polling questions and optionsfor the recipient to respond. In alternative implementations, thepolling questions and options may be included in the main window 420 ofthe interface portal along with messages in the chat session. When adetermined number of the receiving participants have responded, thesending participant may receive the results, for example, as a messagewithin the same chat session, in a results section 424 of the side panel430. These results of the polling question can also be shared with theother participants.

B. Task Objects

In FIG. 4D, another view of the interactive interface portal 400 isshown. In this example, if the user selects the tasks actionable object,the interface 400 may adjust the side panel 430 to providecharacteristics relating to a specific type of tasks for participants ofthe chat session. For example, the participants may be part of a workgroup and the sending participant seeks information to manage theprocess of the work group. When the sending participant initiates thisactionable object, several fields are displayed in the side panel 430 inwhich the sending participant can characterize certain aspects of thetasks actionable object.

As shown in FIG. 4D merely as an illustrative example, these fields mayinclude a plurality of control objects 431 to select a particular taskfor the chat session, a channel field 432 to identify a channelidentifier selected by the sending participant, a recipient field 433 toadd particular recipients, a visibility field 434 to indicate whetherthe assigned task are made visible to other participants, a messagefield 435, task entry fields 436 to enter relevant information regardingthe assigned task, a notification field 437 to indicate that the sendingparticipant is to be notified when the task is completed as well asother relevant fields regarding the process of the work group. In someimplementation, some participants may be able to setup preferencesregarding tasks received. These other relevant fields may include, butnot limited to, estimated time to complete a task, requisitequalifications, minimum compensation for accepting, etc.

Once the task entry fields 436 are completed, the sending participantsmay preview the task before submitting the tasks actionable object 431to the chat session. The tasks actionable object is then embedded in thechat message as a “structured” data object that can be executed by theclient device of a receiving participant. In some implementations, thetasks actionable object 431 can be associated or assigned to one or morereceiving participants. For example, information regarding the receivingparticipants may be inserted into recipient field 433. In oneimplementation, the sending participant may send the tasks actionableobject 431 to receiving participant in the chat session by activating acontrol 438 on the interface portal 400. In some implementations, thereceiving participants may configure certain preferences regardingreceiving task actionable objects, such as a type of task theparticipant is willing to accept, a minimum compensation for acceptingthe task, etc.

In some implementations, the receiving participants can include membersand non-members of the chat session, or another team or participant inthe chat system that is not in the chat session. In one implementation,non-members may be notified by through an electronic transmission, suchas email that a task is waiting. A link may be provided in the emailnotification directing the non-member to move into a browser to view thetask. In addition to being notified that a task is waiting, thenon-member may be provided with other information regarding the task,such the identity of the sending participant.

In some implementations, a control object 439 (e.g., a slider displayobject) to control an input of response information is inserted into thechat session related to the actionable object executed on the clientdevice of the participants. If an individual task is assigned to morethan one participant than multiple control objects, such as sliderobject 439, may be displayed indicating the progress (% completed) ofthat corresponding participant. The control objects are adjustable onlyby the intended participant. In some implementations, the “Task” percentcomplete along with the date that the slider is last updated is shown inthe control object. For example, a task 50% complete on a date that was4 days prior to the current date may indicate something different than anote from the participant indicating that the task was 50% complete asof the current date. In some implementations, slider object 439 mayappear in a certain color and can be adjusted by the receivingparticipant in accordance with a process status of the task, such asGreen, Yellow and Red.

C. Idea Objects

With regards to FIG. 4E, another view of the interactive interfaceportal 400 is shown. In this example, if the user selects the ideaactionable object, the interface 400 may adjust the side panel 430 toprovide characteristics relating to a specific type of input for an ideaactionable object to include in the chat session. For example, theparticipants may be part of a work group and the sending participantwants to propose an idea to the work group. When the sending participantinitiates this actionable object, several fields are displayed in theside panel 430 in which the sending participant can characterize certainaspects of the idea actionable object.

As shown in FIG. 4E, merely as an illustrative example, these fields mayinclude a plurality of control objects 441 to select a particular ideatype for the chat session, a channel field 442 to identify a channelidentifier selected by the sending participant, a recipient field 443 toadd particular recipients, idea entry fields 444 to provide for certainresponses to the idea, a message field 445 to provide idea details aswell as other possible fields. The idea actionable object can beembedded in the chat message as a “structured” data object that can beexecuted by the client device of a receiving participant. In someimplementations, the idea actionable object 441 can be associated orassigned to one or more receiving participants. For example, informationregarding the receiving participants may be inserted into recipientfield 443. In one implementation, the sending participant may send theidea actionable object 441 to receiving participant in the chat sessionby activating a control 446 on the interface portal 400.

In some implementations, the receiving participants can include membersand non-members of the chat session, or another team or participant inthe chat system that is not in the chat session. In one implementation,non-members may be notified by through an electronic transmission, suchas email that a task is waiting. A link may be provided in the emailnotification directing the non-member to move into a browser to view thetask. In addition to being notified that a task is waiting, thenon-member may be provided with other information regarding the task,such the identity of the sending participant.

In some implementations, a control object 447 (e.g., a slider displayobject) to control an input of response information into the chatsession related to the actionable object executed on the client deviceof the participants. If an individual idea is assigned to more than oneparticipant then multiple control objects, such as slider object 439,may be displayed. The control objects are adjustable only by theintended participant. In some implementations, the slider can be updatedto provide a uniform numerical response for the participant rather thatunstructured data. In some implementations, the interface portal 500 mayprovide an indicator (e.g., a display icon) of a total number ofrespondents to the idea as well as an average score of all responsesreceived based on the control objects 447 associated with each receivingparticipant.

IV. Other Example Interactive Interfaces

FIGS. 5A-5D are examples illustrating an interactive interface portal500. For example, the interface portal 500 may correspond to interfaceportal 118 in system 100 of FIG. 1. Interface portal 500 may be comparedto interface portal 300 of FIG. 3 and interface portal 400 of FIG. 4.For example, the interface portal 500 includes several panels thatinclude a channel/dialog panel 510 (which may be compared tochannel/dialog panel 310 and channel/dialog panel 410, a message windowpanel 520 (which may be compared to message window panel 320 and messagewindow panel 420) and a side panel 530 (which may be compared to sidepanel 330 and side panel 430). The interface portal 500 provides anexample interface in which a chat messaging session can be engaged by anumber of participants that are represented by the participant icons A-Hon the portal 500. In this example, the interface portal 500 allowsparticipants to integrate user perceivable actionable objects in a chatsession channel 525, which can be executed by a client device to enhancecommunications between participants of the session channel 525.

A. Sidebar Selection

In some implementations, the system provides asymmetrical chat throughchat channels that are generally visible to all or directed participantsin an intended group. An advantage of this is that users can reply 1 to1 to someone in a group chat rather than the typical limited anddistracting Reply-To-All messaging technology. For example, a user canreply directly to someone in a group chat that can be kept private fromother group members without having to engage the entire group, whileretaining context and relativity to the broader conversation for theparticipants of the 1 to 1 conversation.

Turning to FIG. 5A, another view of the interactive interface portal 500is shown. In this example, interactive interface portal 500 includes thecapability of opening a sidebar selection 531 that allows two or moremembers, such as member A and G of a larger group session channel 525 tocommunicate privately in a private chat session 535. In someimplementations, the private chat session 535 is hidden from display tothe other participants of the larger group session. In oneimplementation, the interface portal 500 may include controls 533 tointegrate some or all of the private chat session 537 into the largergroup session channel 525 for display to other participants. In someimplementations, the private chat session 535 in response to a requestfrom the first participant or the second participant may permit a thirdparticipant to join the second chat session that is either currently inor not in the larger group session channel 525.

In some implementation, a first chat participant, such as participant A,clicks on and/or hovers over the display name for a second chatparticipant, such as participant G, in the main window 520, a sidebarsession 531 opens. In some implementations, the first chat participantmay also initiate the sidebar session 531 by activating a control 533associated with a message from the second chat participant. The sidebarsession 531 allows the first chat participant to interact directly withthe second chat participant outside of larger group session channel 525that includes the other participants. The sidebar session 531 includesfunctions available to users of interface portal 500. For example,sidebar session 531 allows the first and second chat participants tointegrate actionable objects, such as actionable objects 119, into theprivate chat session 535 to enhance the electronic communicationsbetween the participants.

FIG. 5E is an exemplary screen shot that illustrates one exemplaryapproach that allows users to initiate a Sidebar. A Sidebar may be a 1:1private conversation between two (for example) members (or more) of alarger group conversation from within a group channel. Messages in theSidebar are only visible to the parties to the Sidebar. This is furtherdescribed below with reference to FIGS. 10A-10I.

B. Targeted Inclusion with Response Rules

In some implementations, the system of the present disclosure allowsusers to send and receive emails from a group chat channel. For example,a user may send a message to the e-mail address of someone outside ofthe system. When a response to the email comes back, the originator ofthe message can choose to share the entire incoming email or subsetthereof with the group or directed participants of the group. To avoidunwanted, unsolicited messages and spam back into a chat channel, thesystem ascribes a unique identifier to each email sent and incombination with rules for the unique identifier. This permits thesender of an email from the system to define and associate responserules to outgoing messages for replying emails. These rules may beapplied to accept or reject to the incoming emails and may include, butnot limited to, only accepting a defined number of responses or onlyaccepting responses that are received within a defined period of time(or any combination thereof), accepting a certain number of response(e.g., up to three responses even after the time period expires),accepting emails from associated accounts (e.g., an email may be sent toa user's work email but responses can still be accepted from another(personal) email account associated with the user in accordance with therules) as well as other types of rules. By including the email messageinto the chat message stream at the time and place an email originatedfrom and is received, the emails are placed into the discussion incontext. Thus, the channel message stream retains meaning and immediatelasting context that is not available in typical chat technology.

In FIG. 5B, another view of the interactive interface portal 500 isshown. In this example, interactive interface portal 500 includes thecapability of linking an e-mail session panel 540 to a chat sessionassociated with the plurality of participants. In this regard, the emailsession may include an actionable object that can be integrated into thechat session. The email session panel 540 may include a plurality offields to provide information regarding one or more email addresses inwhich data may be received and integrated into the chat session. Theplurality of fields may include, but is not limited to, an email addressfield 541 to enter one or more email addresses and a time period field542 that indicates the chat message session is active to receive data,via a network connection, from the email session during a predeterminedtime period. For example, the time period field 542 may include a dropdown menu of time periods that can be associated with the e-mailsession.

After entering the relevant information into the email session panel540, the sending participant may integrate the email session into chatsession by activating a control 546 on the interface portal 500. In thisregard, an indicator 544 of the email session that is incorporated inthe chat session may be displayed on the main window 520 of theinterface portal 500. During the determined time period, data may bereceived from the email session to be incorporated into the chatsession. For example, the data may be displayed in the main window 520of the interface portal 500 as chat messages. If it is detected that thetime period has expired, an alert may be provided by the system to thee-mail session to indicate that data received from the email session isrejected for inclusion in the chat message session.

As shown in FIG. 5B, data 543 received from the email address associatedwith the email session may be then incorporated into the chat session.In some implementations, this data 543 may include an actionable object,such as actionable object 119, comprising a type indicator tocharacterize a user perceivable action to be executed in the chatmessage session. In some implementations, the data 543 may include acontrol 549 that can be activated to incorporate all or a portion of thedata received from the email session into the chat session. In oneimplementation, the actionable object received from the email sessionmay be combined with a second actionable object in the chat session toadjust characteristics of the user perceivable action to be executed asdiscussed above. In some implementations, action object can be sent tothe email session. In such cases, the email session may receive a linkthat would direct the user back to the system to complete the actionassociated with the action object. For example, if the action is apolling question object, the response for the e-mail session may beincorporated into the overall results associated with the object in thechat session. In other cases, if the task object is sent to the emailsession, the recipient may update a status of the task to indicate theircompletion status. This update is then recorded and reflected in theaction object related to the chat session.

C. Bundle Communications

With bundle communications, the system of the present disclosure allowsusers to parse through a previous channel discussion and assemble thosemessages and actions that the user desires to be saved for futurereference. These Bundles can be appended to messages in the chatchannel, for example by the creator or others participants if soconstructed. In one example, the bundle communications can include abundle message associated with a particular topic, such as a bundle ofbest practices or a bundle consisting of an important team discussion ordecisions.

In FIG. 5C, another view of the interactive interface portal 500 isshown. In this example, interactive interface portal 500 includes thecapability of selecting particular messages from a chat session toinclude in a discussion bundle 550. The discussion bundle 550 mayinclude plurality fields that include, but not limited to, a name field551, one or more display/update option fields 552 that may indicatewhether the discussion bundle 550 can be shared, is private or updatableby other participants, and an indicator of the messages 553 included inthe bundle. For example, a participant may select an icon, such asindicator 554, at each of the messages to be included in the discussionbundle 550. After identifying the message to be included discussionbundle 550, the sending participant may integrate discussion bundle 550into chat session by activating a control 555 on the interface portal500. In this regard, an indicator 556 of the messages incorporated inthe chat session may be displayed on the main window 520 of theinterface portal 500.

D. Token Items

With regards to FIG. 5D, an example of the interactive interface portal500 is shown. In this example, the interface portal 500 includes thecapability of transmitting token items 560 of a certain value toparticipants or groups of participants through a chat session. Eachtoken item is associated with a vendor from a list of vendors 561 thatprovides a particular service or product. In some implementations, aparticipant may select a token item 560 to transmit to anotherparticipant in the chat session. An indicator (such as icon indicators565, 566 and 567) of the token item 560 may be inserted into the mainwindow 520 of the interface portal. The token item 560 may include, butnot limited to, an intended recipient, a value field 562 associated withthe token, and a payment method field 563 (e.g., banking or credit cardinformation).

In some implementations, a participant may enter or select a value inthe value field 562 to be associated with the token item 560. Thesending participant may integrate the token item into chat session byactivating a control 564 on the interface portal 500. When the sendingparticipant activates the control 564, a transaction is registered withthe system regarding the token item 560. A confirmation screen mayappear along with legal disclaimer information, terms and conditionsand/or requesting that the form of payment. If a form of payment ispreviously entered and saved in the payment method field 563 then theparticipant may be asked to confirm the saved information.Alternatively, if a credit balance exists in the sending participant'saccount may be debited. In one implementation, a bank account associatedwith the sending participant may be established and funded by credit,cash or otherwise. If the account is pre-funded with an amount, forexample $50, then subsequent selected token item 560 and theircorresponding costs would be debited from the account balance.

Each token item 560 is assigned a transaction identifier and encodedwith a unique identifier and authentication code to ensure the token'sauthenticity. In some implementations, techniques of disclosure forproviding the token items 560 can be directly integrated into thepoint-of-purchase payment system utilized by any specific vendor. In oneimplementation, the token items 560 can be linked to a physical card(e.g., gift card) associated with the vendor. In other implementations,an exchange system may be employed so that if a user wants to (forexample) exchange their token items 560 for another type of token item.In this regard, the exchange may include determining an exchange rate toconvert a value of one token item to an equivalent value of the othertoken, such as converting dollars to their equivalent miles.

In some implementations, a participant may select a token item from thevendor list 561. In one implementation, the participant may send a tokenas a reaction to a chat message by selecting the chat message in themain window 520 and selecting a control icon 533 associated with giftingthe token items 560. In this example the participant selects to gift thetoken item to a recipient as represented by the gift token icon 565 inthe chat session. In some implementations, the receiving participant mayidentify certain selections to indicate their preferred gift choices. Inthis manner, the sending participant of a gift is able to identify thegift preferences of the intended recipient. In one implementation, thesending participant may override the receiving participant preferredgifts and select a different gift to provide to the recipient. Somegifts may have monetary value while others may be associated with, forexample, a points system of the specific vendor. In someimplementations, the gift token icon 565 may display a group of gifts toselect from that are provided by the sending participant.

In some implementations, the recipient of the token does not have to bemember of the chat session. For example, the recipients may be selectedby a charity or other entities engaged in fundraising. In this example,the sending participant may conduct a funding campaign to solicitdonations from receiving participants, who may be members ornon-members, in the chat session. The receiving participants may receivethe token item and choose to contribute an amount towards to recipient.The total amount raised and/or goal may be indicated in the token itemas displayed on the interface portal 500.

In some implementations, the token items 560 may represent items up forauction as indicated by the auction token icon 566. In this example, aproduct or item may be shown along with a current bid amount. Users canbid on items being offered. In this regard, certain rules can beestablished to represent what constitutes a winning bid and how manywinners there can be amongst the participants. User can click on theauction token icon 566 to view more details, conditions, reviews, etc.,regarding the auction. Bidding for an item may end based on the rules aswell as the rules defined by the sending participant and related to theitem being offered. Users and/or authorized 3rd party vendors orcompanies can post items to be auctioned.

In some implementations, the token items 560 may represent items up forsale as indicated by the sale token icon 567. In some implementations,users may select a group sale or flash sale associated with the saletoken icon 567 or direct the sale of the item to a particularparticipant in the chat session. Receiving participants may hover over,select, click or otherwise activate the sale token icon 567 to indicatean interest in a specific message. The user may be able to viewadditional information about the item being offered for sale by hoveringor clicking (selecting) the sale token icon 567. When the user activatesthe sale token icon 567, several choices may be displayed for the userto indicate an interest and how the pay for the item. For example, thepayment options may include, but not limited to, “buy now”, “buy”,“finance”, etc. In an alternative implementation, the payment optionsmay be pre-configured and associated with a credit card, debit card, ACHor another type of payment account.

V. Example Flow Diagrams

To better aid in understanding implementations of some of the aspectsdescribed above that are, for example, related to integrating actionableobjects into an on-line chat communications platform, reference is nowmade to the following flow diagrams. It should be noted that thefollowing operations do not have to be performed in the precise orderdescribed below. Rather, various operations can be handled in adifferent order or simultaneously, and operations may be added oromitted.

FIG. 6 depicts a flow diagram of a method 600 in accordance with one ormore aspects of the disclosure. In one implementation, the processingdevice 112 of FIG. 1 may perform method 600. The method 600 may beperformed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (circuitry,dedicated logic, etc.), software (e.g., software executed by a generalpurpose computer system or a dedicated machine), or a combination ofboth. In alternative implementations, some or all of the method 600 maybe performed by other components of a shared storage system. It shouldbe noted that blocks depicted in FIG. 6 can be performed simultaneouslyor in a different order than that depicted.

Method 600 begins at block 610 where state information of a chat messagesession associated with a plurality of participants of a group isdetermined. In block 620, an actionable object of a plurality ofactionable objects is selected based on the state information of thechat message session. Each actionable object comprises a type indicatorto characterize a user perceivable action associated with the actionableobject. In this regard, the type indicator comprises at least one of: aquestion indicator, a task indicator or an idea indicator associatedwith the group. At least one participant of the plurality ofparticipants is associated with the actionable object in block 630.Thereupon, the actionable object is provided to the chat message sessionto be selectably executed by a client device associated with the atleast one participant in block 640. In block 650, the state informationassociated with the chat message session is updated in accordance withthe actionable object.

FIG. 7 depicts a flow diagram of a method 700 in accordance with one ormore aspects of the disclosure. In one implementation, the processingdevice 112 of FIG. 1 may perform method 700. The method 700 may beperformed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (circuitry,dedicated logic, etc.), software (e.g., software executed by a generalpurpose computer system or a dedicated machine), or a combination ofboth. In alternative implementations, some or all of the method 700 maybe performed by other components of a shared storage system. It shouldbe noted that blocks depicted in FIG. 7 can be performed simultaneouslyor in a different order than that depicted.

Method 700 begins at block 710 where state information of a first chatmessage session of one or more chat message sessions. The first chatmessage session is associated with a first participant for a pluralityof participants of a group is determined. In block 720, a selection of asecond participant of the plurality of participants is received. A sidechat area of a user interface is provided in block 730 in accordancewith the selection. The side bar area allows the first participant andthe second participant to engage in chat messages of a second chatmessage session associated with the user interface in addition to theone or more chat message sessions. In this regard, the second chatmessage session is hidden from display to other participants of thefirst chat message session. In block 740, the state information of thefirst chat message session is updated based on the second chat messagesession.

FIG. 8 depicts a flow diagram of a method 800 in accordance with one ormore aspects of the disclosure. In one implementation, the processingdevice 112 of FIG. 0.1 may perform method 800. The method 800 may beperformed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (circuitry,dedicated logic, etc.), software (e.g., software executed by a generalpurpose computer system or a dedicated machine), or a combination ofboth. In alternative implementations, some or all of the method 800 maybe performed by other components of a shared storage system. It shouldbe noted that blocks depicted in FIG. 8 can be performed simultaneouslyor in a different order than that depicted.

Method 800 begins at block 810 where state information of a chat messagesession associated with a plurality of participants is determined. Inblock 820, an email session associated with the one of the plurality ofparticipants is identified in response to receiving input theparticipant. A time period is associated in block 830 with the emailsession indicating that the chat message session is active to receivedata, via a network connection, from the email session during the timeperiod. In block 840, the email session is link to the chat messagesession. In block 850, the state information associated with the chatmessage session is updated in accordance with the data received from theemail session.

VI. Example Machine

FIG. 9 illustrates a diagrammatic representation of a machine in theexemplary form of a computer system 900 within which a set ofinstructions, for causing the machine to perform any one or more of themethodologies discussed herein, may be executed. In alternativeimplementations, the machine may be connected (e.g., networked) to othermachines in a local area network (LAN), an intranet, an extranet, or theInternet. The machine may operate in the capacity of a server or aclient machine in a client-server network environment, or as a peermachine in a peer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment. Themachine may be a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a set-top box(STB), a personal digital assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone, a webappliance, a server, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machinecapable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise)that specify actions to be taken by that machine. Further, while only asingle machine is illustrated, the term “machine” shall also be taken toinclude any collection of machines that individually or jointly executea set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more ofthe methodologies discussed herein.

The exemplary computer system 900 may be comprised of a processingdevice 902 (which may correspond to a processing device 112 withinsystem 100 of FIG. 1), a main memory 904 (e.g., read-only memory (ROM),flash memory, dynamic random access memory (DRAM) (such as synchronousDRAM (SDRAM) or Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), etc.), a static memory 906 (e.g.,flash memory, static random access memory (SRAM), etc.), and a datastorage device 916, which communicate with each other via a bus 908.

In a further aspect, the computer system 900 may include a processingdevice 902 (which may correspond to processing device 112), a volatilememory 904 (e.g., random access memory (RAM)), a non-volatile memory 906(e.g., read-only memory (ROM) or electrically-erasable programmable ROM(EEPROM)), and a data storage domain 916, which may communicate witheach other via a bus 908.

Processing device 902 represents one or more general-purpose processingdevices such as a microprocessor, central processing unit, or the like.More particularly, the processing device may be complex instruction setcomputing (CISC) microprocessor, reduced instruction set computer (RISC)microprocessor, very long instruction word (VLIW) microprocessor, orprocessor implementing other instruction sets, or processorsimplementing a combination of instruction sets. Processing device 902may also be one or more special-purpose processing devices such as anapplication specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmablegate array (FPGA), a digital signal processor (DSP), network processor,or the like. Processing device 902 is configured to execute processinglogic 926 for performing the operations and steps discussed herein.

Computer system 900 may further include a network interface device 922.Computer system 900 also may include a video display unit 910 (e.g., aliquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)), analphanumeric input device 912 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor controldevice 914 (e.g., a mouse), and a signal generation device 920 (e.g., aspeaker).

Data storage device 916 may include a machine-readable storage medium(or more specifically a computer-readable storage medium) 924 having oneor more sets of instructions embodying any one or more of themethodologies of functions described herein, including instructionsencoding the techniques including the actionable object integrationmodule 119 of FIG. 1 for implementing method 600 of FIG. 6 and method700 of FIG. 7 and method 800 of FIG. 8 for integrating actionableobjects into an on-line chat communications platform. In someimplementations, the actionable object integration module 119 may alsoreside, completely or at least partially, within main memory 904 and/orwithin processing device 902 during execution thereof by computer system900; main memory 904 and processing device 902 also constitutingmachine-readable storage media. The actionable object integration module119 may further be transmitted or received over a network 925 vianetwork interface device 922.

Instructions 926 may also reside, completely or partially, withinvolatile memory 904 and/or within processing device 902 during executionthereof by computer system 900, hence, volatile memory 904 andprocessing device 902 may also constitute machine-readable storagemedia.

Sidebars and Asymmetrical Group Messaging Views

This explanation is further to the explanation above with regard to“SIDEBAR SELECTION” and FIG. 5A.

At present, group chat applications present all messages to all groupparticipants. In fact, this is a basic premise of what group chat is.Inherent in this approach to group chat (channels, rooms, etc) is thatunnecessary and meaningless messages are presented to all groupparticipants (Symmetrical—everyone sees everything i.e. all messages).It would be desirable to participate in a group discussion without beingsubjected to or forced to read meaningless messages—and more to thepoint, it would be desirable for individual members to communicateprivately with another member (or subset of members) from within a groupchannel. In order to retain situational context, the private messagesare desirably viewed embedded within the general channel message streambut also to avoid possible confusion or lack of continuity, the relatedprivate messages are desirably also able to be viewed together withoutthe noise of interspersed general channel messages. Presented here is apossible solution and attempt to achieve the aforementioned objectives.It reduces the channel clutter imposed by comments such as “Thanks”intended for one but forced upon all, and provides a mechanism to allowfor private sidebar conversations among a subset of a group orchannel—while retaining the situational context of the private commentswithin and related to the overall general conversation. In an exemplaryembodiment of the present invention, only the parties to a sidebarconversation see the messages related to the sidebar conversation(unless other action is taken).

FIGS. 10A-10I are a plurality of screenshots that illustrate operationof an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 10A, aplurality of messages that are exchanged between a plurality ofparticipants are displayed. For ease of identification, the messagesthat are exchanged between the plurality of participants are displayedin a portion of the screen that will be referred to as the mainconversation pane.

As in standard messaging, all participants of the messaging exchange inthe main conversation pane are able to see each other's messages (whichincludes each other's responses to messages). In FIG. 10A, one of theparticipants to the message exchange (in this case, Sona, but it couldbe another participant) desires to have a private conversation with Ali.In this example, Sona and Ali will have a private 1:1 conversation, butin some exemplary embodiments the private conversation may be 1:N, Ngreater than 1, and the private conversation may exclude at least oneperson who is participating in the messaging that is displayed on themain conversation pane. Sona thus clicks on the exemplary “arrow” icon.Sona's action results in the message that was sent by Ali at 8:42 AMbeing designated an “anchor message.” As shown in FIG. 10B, in anexemplary embodiment of the present invention, the act of designatingAli's message as an anchor message results in Ali's message beingdisplayed in a separate pane (but this step is optional). For ease ofidentification, the separate pane displaying Ali's message will bereferred to as a sidebar. As shown in FIG. 10B, a text message boxappears with the words “type sidebar message here.” In FIG. 10C, Sonabegins to type a message that will be seen by Ali but will not be seenby the other participants to the messaging. In FIG. 10D, Sona types themessage “would you mind asking her?” Upon pressing the enter key (ortaking some other step that transmits the character just typed in) andas shown in FIG. 10E, Sona's response appears in the sidebar and istransmitted to Ali. Again, except for Ali and Sona, none of the otherparticipants to the messaging in the main conversation pane see Sona'sresponse. In FIG. 10F, Ali has typed his response to Sona, and Ali'sresponse appears in the sidebar. Again, except for Ali and Sona, Ali'sresponse is not seen by the other participants to the messaging in themain conversation pane. FIG. 10F illustrates that the conversation thatappears in the sidebar can also (optionally) be displayed in the mainconversation pane. For purposes of improving visual appearance, themessages that were entered in the sidebar and duplicated in the mainconversation pane can be collapsed in the main conversation pane. FIG.10G illustrates the main conversation pane with collapsed sidebarmessages. Clicking/selecting one of the links corresponding to acollapsed sidebar message will open the sidebar and allow theconversation to continue in the sidebar (again limited to theparticipants in the conversation in the sidebar and excluding all otherparticipants in the conversation in the main conversation pane). Asshown in FIG. 10H, once a link to a particular message in the mainconversation pane has been selected, the conversation associated withthat link can continue in the sidebar. As shown in FIG. 10I, Ali is partof the conversation in the sidebar between Sona and Frank (while otherparticipants of the conversation in the main conversation pane areexcluded).

As shown, any participant to the conversation in the main conversationpane can respond to a message that has been designated as an anchormessage, and the response can appear in the main conversation pane. Theresponse to the anchor message that is entered into the mainconversation pane (“a response) is visible to all other participants inthe main conversation pane. Furthermore, a response to a message in thesidebar (“a further response”) is seen by the participants participatingin the sidebar conversation, but participants to the conversation in themain conversation pane that are not included in the sidebar conversationare excluded from seeing the message.

As shown in the figures, the anchor message and the response received tothe anchor message in the main conversation pane may be simultaneouslydisplayed. Furthermore, a response to the anchor message in the mainconversation pane and a response to the message in the sidebar may besimultaneously displayed. As shown, the messages that appear in the mainmessage pane are displayed one below the other. Furthermore, themessages displayed in the sidebar may be displayed one below the other.Chat (or chat messaging) is characterized in the prior art as a back andforth dialog or conversation between and among a group of individuals.Chat messaging is also described in the prior art as occurring in avirtual meeting room in which a plurality of user are permitted tocommunicate with each other in real time. Furthermore, Chat messaging isknown in the prior art as providing communication within a chat roomwith a plurality of users without having to specify each of the userseach time a message is sent (the list of users that receive messagestransmitted within the chat room may be a default of the chat room, forexample). Chat communications are displayed as a list of messagesdisplayed in sequential or chronological order. Prior art chatcommunications, however, lacks the ability to organize the contents ofmessages in a meaningful and actionable way.

While a user can certainly pose questions to his/her chat group, theresponses will come back in an unstructured and disorganized way. Someusers within a chat group will respond immediately to the questionswhile other users in the chat group may wait a day or so to respond.Some respondents may respond with a simple “yes” or “no” while othersmay respond with in depth thoughts and comments. Some users may notrespond at all. By using chat as the means to pose his/her questions,the question originator (“originator user”) is accepting the fact thatthe responses will come over time and in various formats and will bescattered among and between all of the various other messages that willhave been sent and received by the group. Chat is not an ideal way tocollect organized and structured responses to questions or surveys.Similarly, tasks and assignments can be sent via chat, but by choosingto use Chat as the means to assign a task, the Assignor's ability totrack the assignment and the Assignee's (or Assignees′) ability toprioritize and manage the assignment is suboptimal. There are many otherexamples of types of daily activity that are currently being handledusing chat as the means of communication. Chat is an excellent andengaging way for people to communicate and interact but there is a needto turn the barrage of messages into a structured form and intoactionable data. There is a further need to be able to compare responsesquickly and on a like basis. The use of exemplary action specifictemplates is described below.

FIG. 11A illustrates one exemplary embodiment of the present invention.1440 is a Typical Chat window. Messages are posted/displayed.Identifying information such as the sender's photo, name (or alias)along with perhaps the date and/or time the message was sent orreceived. User messages are typically displayed in the order that theyare received.

1441 is the message or text entry box. Users type a message and press“Send” to post their comment or message to the Group chat.

1442 is the “Insert Template” pull-down menu (or otherwise displayed andTemplate options revealed). Three examples of templates are shown (Task,Survey and Idea Builder) but many additional templates based on specificactions can be built and or customized by a service provider, the useror third parties—i.e., Third Party Plugins).

When a user chooses to insert a template into a Dialog, a structuredform appears that can be “filled-out” by the user. Through the use ofstructured templates and embedded messages, Chats/Dialogs, are made tobe significantly more functional, organized and actionable. This isillustrated in FIG. 11B.

1440 is a Typical Chat window. Messages are posted/displayed.Identifying information such as the sender's photo, name (or alias)along with perhaps the date and/or time the message was sent orreceived. User messages are typically displayed in the order that theyare received.

1441 is the message or text entry box. Users type a message and press“Send” to post their comment or message to the Group chat.

1442 is the “Insert Template” pull-down menu (or otherwise displayed andTemplate options revealed). Three examples of templates are shown (Task,Survey and Idea Builder) but many additional templates based on specificactions can be built and or customized but the Company, the user orthird parties—i.e., Third Party Plugins).

1450 is an exemplary Survey Form Template.

FIG. 11C illustrates a preview function. 1440 is a typical Chat window.Messages are posted/displayed. Identifying information such as thesender's photo, name (or alias) along with perhaps the date and/or timethe message was sent or received. User messages are typically displayedin the order that they are received.

1451 illustrates a preview. Once the form has been completed the usermay elect to Preview the Survey before Submitting it.

FIG. 11D illustrates a survey. 1440 is a typical Chat window. Messagesare posted/displayed. Identifying information such as the sender'sphoto, name (or alias) along with perhaps the date and/or time themessage was sent or received. User messages are typically displayed inthe order that they are received.

1452 Survey Object. The submitted survey is embedded and is displayed inthe Chat conversation just as a traditional chat message would, howeverthe embedded “message” is a structured “object” and can be acted upon.Survey “Objects” are automatically [color] tagged (indexed).

A survey is a question or group of questions directed to a target groupof people. The target group of people can respond to the survey. Astructured question and answer format (e.g. multiple choice, slider1-10, select one, ranking or open ended narrative response) may be used.Responses (i.e. results) can be aggregated and presented to the surveycreator and/or one or more of the respondents in a summary format orbroken out and presented in various ways including but not limited to,by question ro by respondent.

1456 By [tapping] on a Survey Object (1452), the program presents theuser with the option to Take a Survey View Survey Results (1457).

1457 View survey results.

FIG. 11E illustrates the use of sliders all in one place on this screen(for example), not only provide the User with a quick snapshot of all oftheir outstanding surveys but also creates an urgency for responding tosurveys not completed/due soon

1459 is the submitted survey that is embedded and is displayed in theChat conversation just as a traditional chat message would, however theembedded “message” is a structured “object” and can be acted upon.

1460 is the PulseTrak™ (surveys) Tab. While “PulseTrak” appears in thedrawing, it is understood that “PulseTrak” may refer to any type ofsurvey. Furthermore, while “PulseTrak” is referred to in the DetailedDescription, it is understood that “PulseTrak” may refer to any type orsurvey. “PulseTrak” is merely an example of one type of survey and thename is used for illustrative purposes only. By selecting this Surveys[tab] a predefined sort takes place and the user is presented with alist of “just” PulseTrak™ survey objects/messages.

1461 is for the User to select which Dialog or Dialogs to include in thePulseTrak™ survey Search results. Only surveys relating to selected[checked] Dialogs will appears in the survey list.

1462 is for the user to have the ability to sort the PulseTrak™ SurveyList by (1470), for example, survey originator, survey start date, enddate, number of questions, recognition points, completed/uncompletedsurveys, etc.

1463 is the “+” Icon. One of several ways that a user can add anadditional new survey.

1464 is the Create New Survey button. One of several ways that a usercan add an additional new PulseTrak™ Survey.

1465, 1466 and 1467 are PulseTrak™ Survey Lists that are displayed ingroups (this default setting can be modified by the user). The defaultgroups are “Surveys From Others” (1465)—these are surveys sent to “me”by “known” others; “My Surveys”—survey's I've created (1466) and “PublicSurveys”—these are surveys accepted by me or originated by me to“Public” or “social” or “Unknown” users. Users have the ability to turnon or turn off Public surveys and can further set parameters such as(but not limited to) the type of surveys the user is willing to accept,the estimated time to complete a survey, the max/min number ofacceptable questions and minimum compensation for accepting andresponding to a [Public] survey.

1468 is a “group” icon with a number overlaid that is displayed toindicate the total number of targeted Respondents.

1469 is a status bar that is displayed in the survey object to give thesurvey originator a visible indication as to—Length indicates how manypeople out of the total targeted group have completed the survey; and b)Color indicates proximity to the survey expiration date. Red indicatesthe survey expiration date has been reached or has passed. Yellow meansthe survey date is 24 hours away and green indicates that the expirationdate is more than 24 hours away. (These default parameters can bemodified by the user.)

1470 is a List of Surveys. This is the PulseTrak™ Survey List that isdisplayed that meets the search criteria. When selecting the PulseTrak[tab] (1460) the search criteria automatically includes allmessages/objects that are tagged as “PulseTrak™”. The search is furtherrefined to include surveys that are included in the Dialog or Dialogsthat are selected [checked] (1461)

FIG. 11B shows how a user can create and embed a PulseTrak™ surveytemplate directly into a Dialog or conversation. FIG. 11F shows how auser can use another approach to create and embed a survey from thePulseTrak™ [Tab] (1460)

1005 allows a User to associate the new survey to a Dialog or more thanone Dialog.

1006 allows a User (“an originator user”) to send the survey (“anoutbound message”) to additional Members (“a plurality of remainderusers”) or Non-Members (“an outside source”).

1008 allows a User (“the originator user”) to choose to make the surveyresults (some or all) received from Members (“a plurality of remainderusers”) or Non-Members (“an outside source”) (“the originator userreceives the external message from the outside source as a reply to theoutbound message”) available (“shared”) to Respondents (which includes“said plurality of remainder users”). If the Survey originatordetermines to make the survey available to respondents then the surveyoriginator (“the originator user”) must choose whether to make theresults available to a respondent immediately after the respondent takesthe survey or only once the survey has expiration date and time has beenpassed.

1007 allows a User to reward survey participants with Recognition Pointsor other compensation.

1461 allows the User to select which Dialog or Dialogs to include in thePulseTrak™ Search results. Only Surveys relating to selected [checked]Dialogs will appears in the Survey list (#470)

1470 is the List of Surveys. This is the PulseTrak™ Survey List that isdisplayed that meets the search criteria. When selecting the PulseTrak[tab] (1460) the search criteria automatically includes allmessages/objects that are tagged as “PulseTrak™”. The search is furtherrefined to include surveys that are included in the Dialog or Dialogsthat are selected [checked] (1461)

1475 is the exemplary Survey Form Template.

FIGS. 12A-12E are examples illustrating an interactive interface portal2400. For example, the interface portal 2400 may correspond to interfaceportal 118 of system 100 in FIG. 1 of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/293,620. Interface portal 2400 may be compared to interface portal300 of FIG. 3 of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/293,620. Forexample, the interface portal 2400 includes several panels that includea channel/dialog panel 2410 (which may be compared to channel/dialogpanel 310 of Ser. No. 15/293,620), a message window panel 420 (which maybe compared to message window panel 320 of Ser. No. 15/293,620) and aside panel 430 (which may be compared to side panel 330 of Ser. No.15/293,620). The interface portal 2400 provides an example interface inwhich a chat messaging session can be engaged by a number ofparticipants that are represented by the participant icons A-H on theportal 2400. In this example, the interface portal 2400 allowsparticipants to integrate user perceivable actionable objects in a chatsession channel 2425, which can be executed by a client device toenhance communications between participants of the session channel 2425.In some aspects, by integrating actionable object such as “Tasks”,“Ideas”, “Events”, “Tokens”, “Surveys”, etc., into chat channels, itallows messages (e.g., chat messages) to be organized, searchable,referenceable and context oriented to enhance communications andincrease productivity of users.

In some implementations, a control (e.g., a window tab) on the portal2400 may be activated to display a listing of actionable objects 2440that can be utilized. For example, as shown in FIG. 12A, the listing ofactionable objects 2440 can be display in the side panel 2430 of theinterface portal 400. Each actionable object 2440 corresponds to a datastructure, such as actionable object 2115, which may include a typecategory indicator to characterize a user perceivable action associatedwith the actionable object. For example, the type categories mayinclude, but are not limited to, a question indicator, a task indicatoror an idea indicator, a finance indicator, a tokens indicator, a customcategory indicator and various of type of indicators associated with awork group or participants of a chat session. When one or more of theactionable objects 2440 are added or inserted into a chat message of thechat session, the actionable object executes a series of steps to beperformed by a client device executing a corresponding user perceivableaction. The series of steps can be preprogrammed or variable based onthe context of the type category for that action.

Each actionable object 2440 is associated with one or more datastructures that provide enhanced functionality to chat communications.In some implementations, a user may select an icon, such as one of icons2450, associated with an actionable object to insert into the chatsession. An advantage of inserting the actionable object 2440 into chatmessages is that it provides the basis of order and structure to thechat session to provide an interactive presentment of messagingactivity. In some implementations, the actionable object 2440 can beselected using various mechanisms, such as such as keyboard shortcuts.

Responsive to the selection an actionable object to insert into a chatsession, at least one participant of a plurality of participants may beassociated with the actionable object. For example, a user may add oneor more participants to a dialog box 2460 of the interface portal 2400.The association indicates that the actionable object is directed to theidentified participants, which may be presented on the participant'sclient device when the actionable object is transmitted, for example, byusing network 2195. In one implementation, the interface portal 2400provides a text input section 2470 that may be used to add additionalinformation 2470 regarding the user perceivable action to be executed inaccordance with the selected actionable object.

When a participant, via the interface portal 2400, creates and sends acommunication including the actionable object to the client device of areceiving participant, the receiving participant receives thecommunication (e.g., in the form of an actionable object control) in thechat session in which the participants are currently engaged. Theapplication, such as application 2117 of the receiving client deviceacts to initiate or enable the actionable object at the receivingparticipant end by executing the user perceivable action associated withthe object. In this regard, the sending participant by sending theactionable object is requesting to escalate the chat session to a morecontent enriched form of communication. A recipient participant canactivate the actionable object control or activate a communicationsession at the recipient client device in accordance with the userperceivable action of the actionable objects 2440.

In some implementations, the actionable objects 2440 may be used incombination. For example, the interface portal 2400 may receive aselection of additional actionable objects from the plurality ofactionable objects and combine these additional actionable objects withthe actionable object in the chat session. The combination may changethe characteristics of the user perceivable action to be performed basedon a relative order of the inserted actionable objects 440 and otheractionable objects 2440 appearing elsewhere in the message flow of thechat session.

In one example, the interface portal 2400 may detect the presence of twoor more task type actionable objects, separated by three question typeactionable objects. In this example, the order and/or grouping of theactions performed by the client device with regards to the questions maybe adjusted. For example, the interface portal 2400 may detect that onequestion objection has been inserted, which causes the portal 2400 toprompt the user for further information. In some implementations, thepresentation, input, characterization, appearance, or non-appearance ofthe actionable objects can vary based on the combination (or absence of)various actionable objects in a specific chat messages and/or chatsession.

A. Question Objects

Turning to FIG. 12B another view of the interactive interface portal2400 is shown. In this example, if the user selects the questionactionable object, the interface 2400 may adjust the side panel 2430 toprovide characteristics relating to a specific type of survey question.For example, the user seeks to add a question to their message to pollfor responses from other participants to a chat session in a particularform. When the sending participant initiates this actionable object,several fields are displayed in the side panel 2430 in which the sendingparticipant can characterize certain aspects of the question actionableobject. As shown in FIG. 12B merely as an illustrative example, thesefields may include, a plurality of control objects 2411 to select aparticular question for the chat session, a label field 2412, arecipient field 2413 to add particular recipients, a message field 2414as well as other relevant fields regarding the polling question.

In some implementations, the plurality of control objects 2411 allowsthe sending participant to select a combination of different pollingquestions to provide to the chat session. In one implementation, theparticular questions may be displayed in a questions region, such asquestions region 2415 and 2416, of the side panel 2430 for furtheradjusts by the sending participants. Although only two question regionsare shown in FIG. 12B, the interface portal 2400 may include a number ofadditional questions regions for configuring polling questions in theside panel 2430.

In some implementations, these polling question actionable objects mayinclude, but not limited to, 1) a multiple/single choice object, 2) aranking object, 3) a slider object, and 4) a narrative response, etc. Ifthe multiple/single choice object is selected, this object provides oneor more customizable fields. This object also allows the sendingparticipants to upload, via the interface portal 2400, a media or otherfile which is associated with the specific choice, such as choice 1 2 or3 in questions region 2415, which can be presented with the pollingquestion. If the ranking object is selected, this object inserts orreferences a polling question into the side panel 430 along withinputted configuration settings on how the chat session is to display,categorize, and associate this polling question with regards to otherpolling questions in the chat session.

If the slider object is selected, the object inserts or references apolling question into the side panel 2430 along with pull-down menuoptions (as shown in questions region 2416) to allow the individual tocustomize selectable feedback options. For example, the selectablefeedback options may include a determined list of slider attributes toallow the sending participant to customize the slider left, center andright attributes (e.g., Strongly Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree orStrongly agree) to correspond with responses from the receivingparticipant. It should be noted that this is merely a few examples asother polling questions and question settings can be customized by thesending participant. An advantage of providing a slider object that canbe incorporated into the chat session is that the responses can bestructured and also viewed numerically (e.g., with reference to aspecific position along a slider) as opposed to receiving unstructurednarrative responses from the receiving participants that may bedifficult to interpret.

In some implementations, the question actionable object can beassociated or assigned to one or more receiving participants. Forexample, information regarding the receiving participants may beinserted into recipient field 2413. In one implementation, the sendingparticipant may send the question actionable objects to receivingparticipants in the chat session by activating a control 2417 on theinterface portal 2400. In some implementations, the receivingparticipants of the polling question can include members and non-membersof the chat session, or another team or participant in the chat systemthat is not in the chat session. In one implementation, non-members maybe notified by through an electronic transmission, such as email that apolling question is waiting. A link may be provided in the emailnotification directing the non-member to move into a browser toview/participate in the polling question. In addition to being notifiedthat a polling question is waiting, the non-member may be provided withother information regarding the polling question, such the identity ofthe sending participant. The link to the polling question may remainactive until a determined period of time, such as an expiration date forthe polling questions set by the sending participant.

Once the fields of the selected polling question actionable objects inthe side panel 2430 are completed, the sending participants may previewthe objects before submitting them to the chat session. The pollingquestion actionable objects are then embedded in the chat message as a“structured” data object that can be executed by the client device of areceiving participant. In some implementations, the objects of the sidepanel 2430 can be associated or assigned to one or more receivingparticipants. For example, information regarding the receivingparticipants may be inserted into recipient field 2413. In oneimplementation, the sending participant may send the polling questionactionable object to receiving participant in the chat session byactivating a control 2417 on the interface portal 2400. In someimplementations, the receiving participants may configure certainpreferences regarding receiving polling question actionable objects,such as a type of polling questions the participant is willing toaccept, a minimum compensation for accepting and/or answering thepolling questions, etc.

Responses to the polling questions by members as well as non-members aremade available to the sending participants and other authorized membersof the chat session. The sending participant may choose whether to makethe results available to a respondent immediately after the respondentresponds to the polling questions or only once the expiration date andtime has passed. In some situations, the sending participants can rewardthe receiving participants with recognition points or other type oftokens that will be discussed later in the disclosure.

In FIG. 12C, another view of the interactive interface portal 2400 isshown. In this example, a receiving participant in the chat session mayreceive a control object 2421 that can be activated to display thepolling questions, participant information, expiration dates, etc., andbe provided with the options for responding. In some implementations,the control object may be highlighted with version colors to indicatethat the polling questions are reaching an expiration date in whichresponses can be received. The receiving participant may selectivelyexecute (e.g., by clicking on the object on the display) the controlobject 2421 to view and respond to the polling questions. In someimplementations, the side panel 2430 may display in a polling region,such as polling regions 2422 and 2423, the polling questions and optionsfor the recipient to respond. In alternative implementations, thepolling questions and options may be included in the main window 2420 ofthe interface portal along with messages in the chat session. When adetermined number of the receiving participants have responded, thesending participant may receive the results, for example, as a messagewithin the same chat session, in a results section 2424 of the sidepanel 2430. These results of the polling question can also be sharedwith the other participants.

In FIG. 12D, another view of the interactive interface portal 2400 isshown. In this example, if the user selects the tasks actionable object,the interface 2400 may adjust the side panel 2430 to providecharacteristics relating to a specific type of tasks for participants ofthe chat session. For example, the participants may be part of a workgroup and the sending participant seeks information to manage theprocess of the work group. When the sending participant initiates thisactionable object, several fields are displayed in the side panel 2430in which the sending participant can characterize certain aspects of thetasks actionable object.

As shown in FIG. 4D merely as an illustrative example, these fields mayinclude a plurality of control objects 2431 to select a particular taskfor the chat session, a channel field 2432 to identify a channelidentifier selected by the sending participant, a recipient field 2433to add particular recipients, a visibility field 2434 to indicatewhether the assigned task are made visible to other participants, amessage field 2435, task entry fields 2436 to enter relevant informationregarding the assigned task, a notification field 2437 to indicate thatthe sending participant is to be notified when the task is completed aswell as other relevant fields regarding the process of the work group.In some implementation, some participants may be able to setuppreferences regarding tasks received. These other relevant fields mayinclude, but not limited to, estimated time to complete a task,requisite qualifications, minimum compensation for accepting, etc.

Once the task entry fields 2436 are completed, the sending participantsmay preview the task before submitting the tasks actionable object 2431to the chat session. The tasks actionable object is then embedded in thechat message as a “structured” data object that can be executed by theclient device of a receiving participant. In some implementations, thetasks actionable object 2431 can be associated or assigned to one ormore receiving participants. For example, information regarding thereceiving participants may be inserted into recipient field 2433. In oneimplementation, the sending participant may send the tasks actionableobject 2431 to receiving participant in the chat session by activating acontrol 2438 on the interface portal 2400. In some implementations, thereceiving participants may configure certain preferences regardingreceiving task actionable objects, such as a type of task theparticipant is willing to accept, a minimum compensation for acceptingthe task, etc.

In some implementations, the receiving participants can include membersand non-members of the chat session, or another team or participant inthe chat system that is not in the chat session. In one implementation,non-members may be notified by through an electronic transmission, suchas email that a task is waiting. A link may be provided in the emailnotification directing the non-member to move into a browser to view thetask. In addition to being notified that a task is waiting, thenon-member may be provided with other information regarding the task,such the identity of the sending participant.

In some implementations, a control object 2439 (e.g., a slider displayobject) to control an input of response information is inserted into thechat session related to the actionable object executed on the clientdevice of the participants. If an individual task is assigned to morethan one participant than multiple control objects, such as sliderobject 2439, may be displayed indicating the progress (% completed) ofthat corresponding participant. The control objects are adjustable onlyby the intended participant. In some implementations, the “Task” percentcomplete along with the date that the slider is last updated is shown inthe control object. For example, a task 50% complete on a date that was4 days prior to the current date may indicate something different than anote from the participant indicating that the task was 50% complete asof the current date. In some implementations, slider object 2439 mayappear in a certain color and can be adjusted by the receivingparticipant in accordance with a process status of the task, such asGreen, Yellow and Red.

In some implementations, the system provides asymmetrical chat throughchat channels that are generally visible to all or directed participantsin an intended group. An advantage of this is that users can reply 1 to1 to someone in a group chat rather than the typical limited anddistracting Reply-To-All messaging technology. For example, a user canreply directly to someone in a group chat that can be kept private fromother group members without having to engage the entire group, whileretaining context and relativity to the broader conversation for theparticipants of the 1 to 1 conversation.

Turning to FIG. 13A, another view of the interactive interface portal2500 is shown. In this example, interactive interface portal 2500includes the capability of opening a sidebar selection 2531 that allowstwo or more members, such as member A and G of a larger group sessionchannel 2525 to communicate privately in a private chat session 2535.

In some implementations, the private chat session 2535 is hidden fromdisplay to the other participants of the larger group session. In oneimplementation, the interface portal 2500 may include controls 2533 tointegrate some or all of the private chat session 2537 into the largergroup session channel 2525 for display to other participants. In someimplementations, the private chat session 2535 in response to a requestfrom the first participant or the second participant may permit a thirdparticipant to join the second chat session that is either currently inor not in the larger group session channel 2525.

In some implementation, a first chat participant, such as participant A,clicks on and/or hovers over the display name for a second chatparticipant, such as participant G, in the main window 2520, a sidebarsession 2531 opens. In some implementations, the first chat participantmay also initiate the sidebar session 2531 by activating a control 2533associated with a message from the second chat participant. The sidebarsession 2531 allows the first chat participant to interact directly withthe second chat participant outside of larger group session channel 2525that includes the other participants. The sidebar session 2531 includesfunctions available to users of interface portal 2500. For example,sidebar session 2531 allows the first and second chat participants tointegrate actionable objects, such as actionable objects 2119, into theprivate chat session 2535 to enhance the electronic communicationsbetween the participants.

In some implementations, the system of the present disclosure allowsusers to send and receive emails from a group chat channel. For example,a user may send a message to the e-mail address of someone outside ofthe system. When a response to the email comes back, the originator ofthe message can choose to share the entire incoming email or subsetthereof with the group or directed participants of the group. To avoidunwanted, unsolicited messages and spam back into a chat channel, thesystem ascribes a unique identifier to each email sent and incombination with rules for the unique identifier. This permits thesender of an email from the system to define and associate responserules to outgoing messages for replying emails. These rules may beapplied to accept or reject to the incoming emails and may include, butnot limited to, only accepting a defined number of responses or onlyaccepting responses that are received within a defined period of time(or any combination thereof), accepting a certain number of response(e.g., up to three responses even after the time period expires),accepting emails from associated accounts (e.g., an email may be sent toa user's work email but responses can still be accepted from another(personal) email account associated with the user in accordance with therules) as well as other types of rules. By including the email messageinto the chat message stream at the time and place an email originatedfrom and is received, the emails are placed into the discussion incontext. Thus, the channel message stream retains meaning and immediatelasting context that is not available in typical chat technology.

In FIG. 13B, another view of the interactive interface portal 2500 isshown. In this example, interactive interface portal 2500 includes thecapability of linking an e-mail session panel 2540 to a chat sessionassociated with the plurality of participants. In this regard, the emailsession may include an actionable object that can be integrated into thechat session. The email session panel 2540 may include a plurality offields to provide information regarding one or more email addresses inwhich data may be received and integrated into the chat session. Theplurality of fields may include, but is not limited to, an email addressfield 2541 to enter one or more email addresses and a time period field2542 that indicates the chat message session is active to receive data,via a network connection, from the email session during a predeterminedtime period. For example, the time period field 2542 may include a dropdown menu of time periods that can be associated with the e-mailsession.

After entering the relevant information into the email session panel2540, the sending participant may integrate the email session into chatsession by activating a control 2546 on the interface portal 2500. Inthis regard, an indicator 2544 of the email session that is incorporatedin the chat session may be displayed on the main window 2520 of theinterface portal 2500. During the determined time period, data may bereceived from the email session to be incorporated into the chatsession. For example, the data may be displayed in the main window 2520of the interface portal 2500 as chat messages. If it is detected thatthe time period has expired, an alert may be provided by the system tothe e-mail session to indicate that data received from the email sessionis rejected for inclusion in the chat message session.

As shown in FIG. 13B, data 2543 received from the email addressassociated with the email session may be then incorporated into the chatsession. In some implementations, this data 2543 may include anactionable object, such as actionable object 2119, comprising a typeindicator to characterize a user perceivable action to be executed inthe chat message session. In some implementations, the data 2543 mayinclude a control 2549 that can be activated to incorporate all or aportion of the data received from the email session into the chatsession. In one implementation, the actionable object received from theemail session may be combined with a second actionable object in thechat session to adjust characteristics of the user perceivable action tobe executed as discussed above. In some implementations, action objectcan be sent to the email session. In such cases, the email session mayreceive a link that would direct the user back to the system to completethe action associated with the action object. For example, if the actionis a polling question object, the response for the e-mail session may beincorporated into the overall results associated with the object in thechat session. In other cases, if the task object is sent to the emailsession, the recipient may update a status of the task to indicate theircompletion status. This update is then recorded and reflected in theaction object related to the chat session.

With bundle communications, the system of the present disclosure allowsusers to parse through a previous channel discussion and assemble thosemessages and actions that the user desires to be saved for futurereference. These Bundles can be appended to messages in the chatchannel, for example by the creator or others participants if soconstructed. In one example, the bundle communications can include abundle message associated with a particular topic, such as a bundle ofbest practices or a bundle consisting of an important team discussion ordecisions.

In FIG. 13C, another view of the interactive interface portal 2500 isshown. In this example, interactive interface portal 2500 includes thecapability of selecting particular messages from a chat session toinclude in a discussion bundle 2550. The discussion bundle 2550 mayinclude plurality fields that include, but not limited to, a name field2551, one or more display/update option fields 2552 that may indicatewhether the discussion bundle 2550 can be shared, is private orupdatable by other participants, and an indicator of the messages 2553included in the bundle. For example, a participant may select an icon,such as indicator 2554, at each of the messages to be included in thediscussion bundle 2550. After identifying the message to be includeddiscussion bundle 2550, the sending participant may integrate discussionbundle 550 into chat session by activating a control 2555 on theinterface portal 2500. In this regard, an indicator 2556 of the messagesincorporated in the chat session may be displayed on the main window2520 of the interface portal 2500.

While a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium 928 is shown inan exemplary implementation to be a single medium, the term“machine-readable storage medium” should be taken to include a singlemedium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database,and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more sets ofinstructions. The term “machine-readable storage medium” shall also betaken to include any medium that is capable of storing or encoding a setof instruction for execution by the machine and that causes the machineto perform any one or more of the methodologies of the disclosure. Theterm “machine-readable storage medium” shall accordingly be taken toinclude, but not be limited to, solid-state memories, and optical andmagnetic media.

Some portions of the detailed descriptions are presented in terms ofalgorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bitswithin a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the means used by those skilled in the videoprocessing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their workto others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally,conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desiredresult. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the above discussion, itis appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizingterms such as “receiving”, “determining”, “associating”, “updating”,“providing”, “integrating”, “selecting”, “executing”, “processing”, orthe like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, orsimilar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transformsdata represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computersystem's registers and memories into other data similarly represented asphysical quantities within the computer system memories or registers orother such information storage, transmission or display devices.

Examples described herein also relate to an apparatus for performing themethods described herein. This apparatus may be specially constructedfor performing the methods described herein, or it may comprise ageneral-purpose computer system selectively programmed by a computerprogram stored in the computer system. Such a computer program may bestored in a computer-readable tangible storage medium.

The methods and illustrative examples described herein are notinherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus.Various general purpose systems may be used in accordance with theteachings described herein, or it may prove convenient to construct morespecialized apparatus to perform methods 300 and 400 and/or each of itsindividual functions, routines, subroutines, or operations. Examples ofthe structure for a variety of these systems are set forth in thedescription above.

Whereas many alterations and modifications of the disclosure will nodoubt become apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art afterhaving read the foregoing description, it is to be understood that anyparticular implementation shown and described by way of illustration isin no way intended to be considered limiting. Therefore, references todetails of various implementations are not intended to limit the scopeof the claims, which in themselves recite only those features regardedas the disclosure.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of providing messaging, said methodcomprising the steps of: providing a virtual online meeting room inwhich a plurality of users that includes an originator user and aplurality of remainder users are permitted to communicate with eachother; permitting said originator user to transmit a communication to anoutside source that is excluded from the virtual online meeting room atthe time the originator user transmits said communication to the outsidesource, permitting said originator user to receive an external messagefrom the outside source responsive to said communication, wherein saidexternal message is displayed to said originator user and is preventedfrom being displayed to said remainder users; permitting a) saidoriginator user to designate at least a portion of said external messageas shared after said originator user receives said external message; orb) said at least said portion of said external message to be designatedas shared unless said originator user designates said at least saidportion of said external message as not shared after said originatoruser receives said external message; permitting at least one of saidremainder users to have at least said portion of said external messagedisplayed to said at least one of said remainder users responsive tosaid at least said portion of said external message being designated asshared.
 2. A method of providing messaging according to claim 1, whereinwhich of said plurality of users is said originator user and which ofsaid plurality of users are said remainder users varies.
 3. A method ofproviding messaging according to claim 1, wherein transmission ofmessages from said originator user within said virtual online meetingroom results in said messages being displayed by said remainder userswithout specifying said remainder users when said messages aretransmitted.
 4. A method of providing messaging according to claim 1,wherein said originator user is permitted to designate all of saidexternal message as shared after said originator user receives saidexternal message.
 5. A method of providing messaging according to claim1, said method further comprising the step of permitting said originatoruser to modify said external message to form a modified message, whereinsaid modified message is designated as shared after said originator userreceives said external message.
 6. A method of providing messagingaccording to claim 1, wherein the external message is indicated as beingnot shared until the external message is designated as shared.
 7. Amethod of providing messaging according to claim 1, wherein the externalmessage is indicated as being shared after the external message has beendesignated as shared.
 8. An apparatus for providing messaging, saidapparatus comprising: at least one microprocessor for: providing avirtual online meeting room in which a plurality of users that includesan originator user and a plurality of remainder users are permitted tocommunicate with each other, permitting said originator user to transmita communication to an outside source that is excluded form the virtualonline meeting room at the time the originator user transmits saidcommunication to the outside source, permitting said originator user toreceive an external message from the outside source responsive to saidcommunication, wherein said external message is displayed to saidoriginator user and is prevented from being displayed to said remainderusers; permitting a) said originator user to designate at least aportion of said external message as shared after said originator userreceives said external message; or b) said at least said portion of saidexternal message to be designated as shared unless said originator userdesignates said at least said portion of said external message as notshared after said original user receives said external message;permitting at least one of said remainder users to have at least saidportion of said external message displayed to said at least one of saidremainder users responsive to said at least said portion of saidexternal message being designated as shared; and non-transitory memoryfor storing said external message.
 9. Apparatus for providing messagingaccording to claim 8, wherein which of said plurality of users is saidoriginator user and which of said plurality of users are said remainderusers varies.
 10. Apparatus for providing messaging according to claim8, wherein said originator user is permitted to designate all of saidexternal message as shared after said originator user receives saidexternal message.
 11. Apparatus for providing messaging according toclaim 8, wherein said originator user is permitted to modify saidexternal message to form a modified message, wherein said modifiedmessage is designated as shared after said originator user receives saidexternal message.
 12. Apparatus for providing messaging according toclaim 8, wherein the external message is indicated as being not shareduntil it is designated as shared.
 13. Apparatus for providing messagingaccording to claim 8, wherein the external message is indicated as beingshared after the external message has been designated as shared. 14.Apparatus for providing messaging according to claim 8, wherein theexternal message is indicated as being shared after the external messagehas been designated as shared.